Maybe you've heard that things are getting a little dicey with Turkey. Of course the EU has previously expressed mixed feelings over Turkey's potential future membership in the EU. There are compelling economic-political arguments from both camps. Turkey has been a trading partner and military ally of the US for some decades (a convenient, non-threatening to Israel, pseudo-secular/democratic Muslim nation situated geographically to control key waterways, like Egypt). Turkey has purchased billions of dollars worth of US military hardware over the years, and allowed us to use their airspace/land for bases and operations against Saddam's Iraq and the former USSR. We've had Turkey-based nukes pointed at Russia's underbelly for years, which probably encouraged Khruschev to do the same to us with Castro's Cuba in 1961. So as a longtime conservative ally, naturally Bush lobbied the EU to hasten Turkey's membership, despite their glaring human/civil rights and corruption problems (similar abuses that the US routinely condemns Zimbabwe, Iran, Russia, and North Korea for).
Now in Iraq, the stable and powerful Iraqi Kurdistan is a beacon of hope for oppressed Kurdish minorities in Turkey and Iran. Turkish troops have often clashed with PKK fighters (the "Kurdish Worker's Party", a resistance/separatist group that Turkey and the US have declared a terrorist organization), and probably engaged in multiple cross-border operations since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Recently over a dozen Turkish soldiers were killed in hostilities with the PKK, making it one of the bloodiest days for the Turkish military in many years.
But the situation is very delicate for us: on one hand, Iraqi Kurdistan is our best example of things "going right" in America's vision for post-Saddam Iraq. Cracking down on the PKK would outrage Iraqi Kurds and make national reconciliation/cooperation more difficult for US diplomats and the central government in Baghdad. But inaction would spurn our long-time strategic ally Turkey, and appear hypocritical considering our hard line against other Mideast "terror groups" like Hizbullah and Hamas (and possibly the Iranian Revolutionary Guards).
To make matters worse, this week Turkey publicly declared that their forces will conduct cross-border operations into Iraq to deal with the PKK (they've already fired artillery at suspected PKK camps over the border). Iraqi Kurdistan leaders have threatened Turkey with "heavy losses" if its troops dare to invade. Secretary Rice and the US government have warned Turkey against such actions, but really – what can we do about it? We depend on Turkey to base our forces, as a much more stable nation than Iraq, Saudi Arabia, or the Central Asian 'Stans. We condemned Iran for their alleged cross-border "destabilizing" activities into Iraq, so we can't condone Turkey doing the same thing on the other border.
In addition, Turkey may use Bush's own arguments against him if we denounce their military interventions. "Turkey doesn't need anyone's permission to defend itself and protect its people from threats. Turkey must preempt Kurdish separatists (or terrorists if you prefer) from launching future deadlier attacks on the homeland, and deprive them of their training bases and safe haven in northern Iraq. Any nation that harbors enemies is also an enemy." Isn't that what we told the world to justify violating Iraqi/Afghan sovereignty and toppling Saddam and the Taleban?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071010/ap_on_re_mi_ea/turkey_kurds_8
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/12B13419-2F9C-4E2E-A124-E6D6635FCCEC.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2007/07/iraq-070705-rferl01.htm
And finally, in the worst timing ever, the Democrat-led Congress is debating a bill to declare the deaths of over a million Armenians by WWI-era Ottoman Turks a "genocide". Bush and Rice have asked Congress to rethink the matter, even though the troublemaking French already passed such legislation last year ( Turkey pulled its ambassador in protest and some EU leaders are upset about the controversy it caused).
Condi previously declared in a speech that the US would no longer sit idly by, tolerating unjust regimes in the Middle East in order to preserve "stability" (as in, it was better for the world that we intervened and deposed Saddam, instead of just tolerating his growing menace to keep the peace). Supposedly this attitude applies to other nations like Iran and Syria. But what about Turkey? Aren't the Bushies and pro-Turkey lobby hoping to censor Congress in order to preserve stability and not make waves? To me, this issue is a sideshow distraction from the real policy problems between Turkey, Iraq , and the US. But still, genocide is just a word. Either it was or it wasn't. We condemned Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust, even though our Fatah Palestinian buddy Abbas said the same. It took him a few years, but Bush also declared that the Darfur violence was genocide. Turkey claims that many Armenians "died" in the Ottoman Empire. But strong historical evidence implicates Turkish troops in the mass murders. It's not exactly and unsolved mystery of history. Even famous Turkish writers have declared the tragedy was genocide, despite heavy protest and public alienation.
Most of the world believes that Japan committed genocide and other atrocities in WWII-occupied China, despite 50 years of denials from the Tokyo government. Just because a regime says so doesn't make it fact. Do I think the US Congress or French National Assembly are the appropriate forums to discuss the proper naming of various world tragedies and war crimes? Probably not, but the Bushies shouldn't oppose them so vociferously just to cover for an ally with a very checkered track record. Bush is quick to declare Hamas, Saddam, the Burmese junta, and the Iranian government to be fascists, dictators, and mass murderers. Bosnia was genocide. Cambodia was genocide. Rwanda was genocide. Despite incomplete evidence, conflicting historical accounts, and few if any perpetrators brought to trial, we called it what it was. Yet he won't call a spade a spade on the issue of the Armenian Genocide, just because Turkey is an "ally" in the war on terror. For an administration that is so high on itself regarding human rights, freedom, and such, this is a terrible lapse in my view.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7038095.stm
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/12/europe/EU_GEN_France_Turkey_Genocide_Bill.php
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A very good summary of the Armenial Genocide controversy (that we or most other Americans know nothing about) by Economist news editor Bruce Clark:
"The more foreign parliaments insist that our forebears committed crimes against humanity, the less likely anybody in Turkey is to face up to the hardest moments in history."
What such appeals reflect, of course, is an elementary fact of human psychology: the phenomenon of individual and collective defensiveness.
When people feel completely secure, and among friends, they can be very frank about misdeeds which they, or people close to them, have committed.
But hackles will go up again as soon as they become insecure, because they feel their accusers are acting in bad faith, or that accepting their accusations will have bad consequences.
Sceptics may retort that in recent years, things have been moving in the opposite direction: the revised Turkish penal code and its preamble, adopted in 2005, make even more explicit the principle that people may be prosecuted if they "insult Turkishness" - a crime which, as the preamble makes clear, includes the assertion that the Ottoman Armenians suffered genocide.
The sultan's regime was desperately trying to distance itself from the actions of the CUP, the "state within a state" which in 1915 had masterminded the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Armenians - and is alleged to have given secret "extermination" orders at the same time.
During the early months of 1919, few people in Anatolia publicly doubted that Armenians had suffered atrocities that were egregious even by the standards of a terrible war.
In April 1919 a local governor, Mehmed Kemal, was found guilty and hanged for the mass killing of Armenians in the Ankara district.
But the climate shifted rapidly after May 1919, when Greek troops were authorised by the victorious Entente powers to occupy the Aegean port of Izmir and, in another part of Anatolia, Mustafa Kemal - later known as Ataturk - began his campaign to make the Turks masters in their own land. (DAMN GREEKS!)
In 1921, the British government made a pragmatic deal to release a group of Turkish prisoners it had been holding in Malta on suspicion (among other things) of crimes against the Armenians.
They were freed in exchange for Britons being held by the Turks.
In Turkish lore, this release is held up as proof that no serious evidence against the captives existed.
The atrocities against the Armenians were committed by an Ottoman government, albeit a shadowy sub-section of that government.
There is no logical reason why a new republican administration, established in October 1923 in an act of revolutionary defiance of Ottoman power, should consider itself responsible for things done under the previous regime.
The very fact that the Turkish republic bears no formal responsibility for eliminating the Armenian presence in eastern Anatolia (for the simple reason that the republic did not exist when the atrocities occurred) has given some Turkish historians a flicker of hope: one day, the leaders of the republic will be able to face up to history's toughest questions about the Armenians, without feeling that to do so would undermine the very existence of their state.
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In the most recent Republican debate I heard one candidate claiming that he would support an official apology for slavery - so I suppose there's hope that just about any government can atone for its previous misdeeds (regardless of how closely the entity issuing the apology reflects the state of ages past).
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I couldn't agree with you more regarding your email on Turkey and the Armenian genocide. As a side, when people told Hitler that the international community would condemn Germany for slaughtering the Jews he apparently cited the international community's reaction (or nonreaction) to the Turks slaughtering the Armenians as evidence that people would forget.
Clarification--
Apparently Hitler was talking about slaughtering the Poles (even though I guess many of them were Jewish) and not specifically the Jews.
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Yeah exactly. I don't really think the US government would get all outraged and pull ambassadors if, say Estonia or Bolivia officially condemned US slavery, atomic bombing of Japan, ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, terrorism against Cuba/Nicaragua, My Lai massacre, etc. We all know basic universal rights and wrongs. I know Bush said that other nations are either "with us or against us" in the war on terror, and wouldn't give contracts to countries that didn't help us during the initial invasion of Iraq. But in terms of the more distant past, I think we are more honest with ourselves and tolerant of external criticism than many places in the world (except the occasional revisionist history lesson, like Bush saying we left Vietnam prematurely). We can peacefully coexist with other nations even if they don't approve of our actions/policies or we don't approve of theirs, to a certain point. Sure we have a long way to go to atone for past crimes. At least we gave reparations to victims of Japanese internment, and shitty land for Native Americans to build casinos. Of course we should all aspire to be as reconciliatory and sincere as postwar Germany, and I know it's hard for nations to ever publicly admit that they are less than perfect.
Americans *usually* tolerate dissenting viewpoints (right wing talk radio and cable news networks aside), and we have a Bill of Rights at least. On the other hand, nationalistic paranoid governments in Turkey, Iran, etc. may throw you in jail for "insulting" national dignity, and you could be guilty until proven innocent. It's a sign of a weak regime if they are so repressive and scared of anti-government expression that they believe undermines national security. A nation can't survive if it's more concerned with enforcing state-endorsed "truths" rather than actual constructive governance ( Burma and North Korea come to mind, as well the former Iron Curtain nations).
When threatened, people do turn all prideful and nationalistic, blinding themselves to the fact that most nations in history were dysfunctional, foolish, and sometimes criminal. When more than two humans get together, they tend to do stupid, mean stuff to each other. Neither Turkey nor America are without sin, but why do some believe that it compromises national interests to admit it? I think you come off as a STRONGER nation if you show honesty and dignity to the world community, and compassion to past victims. Otherwise you just fall into a downward spiral. Like with Japan and China, the more Japan denies/downplays its past crimes, the more enraged and insistent China becomes. The more China criticizes Japan, the more defensive and obstinate they become about their war history. And the pathetic part is that most Asian WWII criminals and victims are dead or infirmed, so there's no tangible justice to serve. The two nations are just squabbling to score petty political points at home and "defend" their national prestige abroad. The same can be said of Turkey and Armenia.
Many have said it before, including the House Foreign Affairs Committee who is sponsoring the controversial bill: the CURRENT government in Turkey bears NO responsibility for the Armenian Genocide. Why be so defensive about the past when they have so many pressing modern problems that require more attention? Bush takes the blame for Iraq, but shouldn't feel guilty for losing the War of 1812. So I have no idea why modern Turks get so defensive over war crimes that most weren't even alive to witness? Why should we be ashamed of what our grandfathers did? Is that any reflection on us today? I know present-day Turks do feel badly for what happened, and many of their ancestors were slaughtered during WWI also. But it doesn't make Turks any lower of a people by admitting that past atrocities took place. Turkey is not and should not be solely associated with the Armenian Genocide. They are a progressing nation with rich heritage and very successful people in many areas of human endeavors. America was a hive of intolerance and injustice during the slavery and Civil War years, but we redeemed ourselves in the 20 th Century. We passed laws to improve our society, amended our Constitution, and sacrificed dearly for the freedom of others during WWII. A nation that did wrong in the past doesn't have to be "evil' forever. In war everyone is a victim, and we all share some of the blame for the collective damage. We should only feel guilty if we continue to espouse the same hatred and ignorance that encouraged our ancestors to do harm to their fellow man (and today we have the benefit of improved education and enlightenment, so really there is no excuse).
To me it's almost another form of racism. Are the past crimes still in our genes or something? Just because Hitler was Austrian, are present-day Austrians turning themselves in to the World Criminal Court if they laugh at a Jewish joke? Of course we can't pretend that past wrongs are totally resolved, and we should be sensitive to the descendants of victims of injustice ( i.e. the Jena High white boys shouldn't have hung nooses in the tree to shoo off the blacks). I don't know; maybe people seek refuge and cling to the past (an idealized past more congruent with their biased world view) when they are unwilling or unready to face the challenges of modern reality and trepidation over an uncertain future.
So on the flipside, maybe it's not appropriate for the American Congress to call out Turkey during this sensitive period of Mideast affairs. Even if Congress means to criticize the former Ottoman Empire, they have to be cognizant of the fact that modern-day Turks may take it harshly. Apparently Congress has already passed similar resolutions during the Cold War, so why bring it up again? What good will it do? Appease Armenia and the Armenian-American community? Well, if America and Western Europe have gone to great lengths to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and vilify the perpetrators, then we must be sensitive to other mass murders in history too.
By the way, to me it's pitiful that Israel is one of a few nations that hasn't recognized the Armenian Genocide (Russia, France , and others have, America is still on the fence, but UK and Israel haven't). For a nation born from the victims of genocide, it's shameful. But they do it because Turkey is a strategic ally, of course. Which brings me to my final point (I know you're breathing a large sigh of relief!): are alliances so precious that we need to ignore basic truths and conscience to preserve them? At one time or another, the US has allied itself with major thugs (Saddam, Osama, Stalin, Pol Pot, Noriega, etc.), and sung their praises when it suited us! Then when they fall out of our good graces, they are evil vermin. It's just ridiculous. A murderer is still a murderer, whether it's your sworn enemy or your blood brother. I don't know why we need to conceal or warp the truth just so we can justify going to bed with questionable leaders and regimes.
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Turkey takes step toward Iraq operation
By SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 1 minute ago
ANKARA, Turkey - The Turkish government will seek parliamentary approval for a military operation against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, a government spokesman said Monday, taking action on one of two major issues straining relations with Washington.
The spokesman, Cemil Cicek, said he hoped Parliament would vote on the motion this week — passage is considered likely — but indicated that the government would still prefer a solution to the conflict that does not involve a cross-border offensive.
"Our hope is that there will be no need to use this motion," Cicek said.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government twice acquired similar authorizations from the Parliament in 2003, but did not act on them.
Cicek insisted the only target was the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the PKK.
"We have always respected the sovereignty of Iraq, which is a friendly and brotherly country to us," Cicek said. "But the reality that everyone knows is that this terrorist organization, which has bases in the north of Iraq, is attacking the territorial integrity of Turkey and its citizens."
The statement appeared to be aimed at reassuring Iraq's central government as well as Iraqi Kurds, who run their own administration in northern Iraq.
Fighting along the border with Iraq was reported over the weekend, where Turkey's military said it "responded heavily" to attacks from northern Iraq by Kurdish fighters on Friday. Iraqi Kurds reported that Turkish artillery hit their territory.
Senior rebel commander Duran Kalkan said the Turkish military would suffer a serious blow if it launches a cross-border offensive, saying it would "be bogged down in a quagmire," the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency reported Monday.
Oil prices rose Monday, partly reflecting concerns over a conflict that could open up a new front in the Iraq war. Light, sweet crude for November delivery hit a new high of $85.19 a barrel before retreating in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, midafternoon in Europe.
Cabinet ministers also were expected to debate retaliatory measures if the U.S. Congress passes a resolution that labels the World War I-era killings of Armenians as genocide.
A U.S. House panel approved the resolution last week, infuriating Turkish leaders who said ties with their NATO ally would suffer.
At issue in the resolution is the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks. Many international historians contend the World War I-era deaths amounted to genocide, but Turkey says the mass killings and deportations were not systematic and that many Turkish Muslims died in the chaos of war.
Turkish anger over the genocide resolution has led to commentary that Turkey would be less likely to take into account U.S. opposition to a unilateral Turkish action in Iraq, which could destabilize a relatively peaceful part of the country.
Turkey's top general warned over the weekend that military ties between Turkey and the United States could be seriously damaged if the genocide resolution passes Congress.
Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said President Bush had no plans to intervene in the vote, although the administration has been lobbying intensely to persuade lawmakers to reject the resolution.
"There should be no question of the president's views on this issue and the damage that this resolution could do to U.S. foreign policy interests," Fratto told reporters Monday aboard Air Force One.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will schedule a vote soon on the resolution.
Fratto said the White House does not want Pelosi to bring it to the floor; should it come to a vote, he said, "We will strongly encourage members not to support it."
Turkey, a major cargo hub for U.S. forces in Iraq, has recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations and warned that there might be a cut in logistical support to the United States.
About 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military there. U.S. bases also get water and other supplies carried in by Turkish truckers who cross into Iraq's northern Kurdish region.
In 1975, Washington imposed an arms embargo that lasted three years against Ankara following its invasion of Cyprus, using U.S. weapons. Turkey, a Cold War ally of the United States, responded by limiting U.S. military and intelligence activities on its soil.
Turkey has urged the United States and Iraq to crack down on PKK rebels who have been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey since 1984.
